In the sermon titled 'Talking to Your Children About Sex,' Jason Dohm discusses the importance of parents leading conversations about sexuality with their children to prevent misinformation from external sources. He highlights two extremes: introducing children to inappropriate content too early or avoiding the topic altogether. Dohm advises parents to 'beat the body clock' by starting conversations before physical changes occur, using age-appropriate language and biblical references to provide a theological framework for understanding sexuality. He suggests that fathers should lead these discussions with mothers present to ensure accurate communication. The sermon emphasizes modesty, the significance of marriage as the appropriate context for sexual expression, and open communication policies within families. Dohm also advises controlling household environments to prevent inappropriate interactions and maintaining respectful language when discussing sensitive topics.

I would like to ask for the Lord to help us. Father, I thank you for every good gift. You are the father of every good thing in our lives. You send the good things. And I thank you for this good thing that our young children are totally oblivious to for a while and then become sort of aware of and then over time they come into a full understanding of it.

And I God I pray that you would help us to be alongside them as parents, to be tender towards them and sensitive to them. And God to build a theological framework for this as well so that we would see this in view of the revelation that you've given to your people as a great and mighty deposit and a good gift. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. In this day and age, you have not been a pastor for very long until you meet the man who was introduced to pornography by his dad.

And I'm sure I know more than three men of this, but when I say that, I instantly think of three names of men when they were little boys who were introduced to very explicit sexuality and images by their own father and brought into bondage by their own dad. And so for me that sort of defines one end of the continuum, just the horrific end. You never want to be that, you never want to be any part of that. If that's part of your experience in the past, you know how difficult it is to be free of that when it's part of your earliest years. There's also the other end of that continuum which is the Christian parent that just can't bring themselves to even you know ever mention it to their children And so they even send their children into their wedding night hoping that somebody else, you know, has broken the news to them.

They just couldn't bring themselves to speak of these things. And so they hope for the best. So we don't want to be that either. And so my first exhortation is just to say, hey, we need to be the ones who bring our children into this world of understanding things that you don't understand from the earliest age and you're going to have to learn about as you begin to mature. We want to be the ones who open this door and bring them into that world.

We don't want it to be quote unquote friends. We certainly don't want it to be peers. We don't want it to be quote unquote friends. We certainly don't want it to be peers. We don't want it to be other relatives.

These are sensitive things that need to be handled in the right way because we know our children best. We're the ones to do it. And we have that responsibility. So I think the first question that all parents wonder is, you know, how old is old? How old is old enough?

I don't want to do it too soon, but I don't want to wait too long. What's the magic age? Well, the Bible doesn't give us the magic age. But my exhortation is going to be beat the body clock. Okay beat the body clock meaning their bodies are maturing.

Their bodies are maturing into sexuality and I think we wanna beat that at least by a little if we can meaning there's a time of life where the young ladies in our homes are going to be beginning to have a monthly female cycle. Don't let them be taken by surprise and scared to death by that. Beat the body clock on that. There's going to be a time when young men are having things that are happening physically with hair cropping up in places where they've never had hair and their bodies are changing, okay, beat the body clock, begin to speak to them in certain ways as they're coming into this period of time when their bodies are really changing, so that they understand what is happening and all this has a context and it doesn't seem weird because mom and dad have already talked to them about it, so they saw it coming. They knew what to expect and they weren't caught by surprise.

So, you know, for girls, this is probably 10 to 12 when you should start thinking about that, and their bodies are maturing a little more quickly than boys, and so maybe for boys, it's a little bit after that. But my exhortation would be to try to beat the changes in the body that are gonna be a real surprise to them if they've never been spoken to about it. But to what Scott has said, you better start a lot, lot, lot sooner with that with progressive, age-appropriate explanations of what you're encountering together in your study of the Bible. In other words, don't skip texts. Don't skip texts.

Just keep going. Cover the text and as you encounter things that engage sexuality in the text of scripture that you're not skipping and they ask you what is sexual immorality, you tell them something that would make sense for the age that they are. The language that we've typically like to use in our home, which I'm sure is borrowed language, I don't know where we got it from, but I know it didn't originate with us, is this is a man living with a woman as if they're married but they're not married and God only wants married people to live together in this way and so it dishonors God if you run ahead of marriage and live together like you're married when you're not. That's dishonoring to God, it displeases him. We should never do that.

Okay, that's, that might be your first foray into handling those kinds of texts. And I'll usually say, and there's more to know about that. But I'm not ready to tell you yet, and you're going to know more when the time is right. Okay, so I set the table that there's more to know and that I'll be speaking with them more on it later, but I'm not ready to do that then. And like Scott said, usually that is more than sufficient for them.

It may be a long time before they even ask you what sexual immorality is because it goes right over the top of their head. Recommendations for speaking with your older children about human sexuality. Again, like in my former talk, I think we want to build a theological framework. We want to build a God-centered framework for an understanding of sex and not a man-centered framework. And so you're just going to start right at the beginning, right?

You're going to start right in Genesis 1, 27, and 28. And I would open, I think I have opened speaking with children that we have spoken with in more explicit ways with Genesis 1, 27 and 28. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them. Then God blessed them and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply. So right here in the first chapter of the Bible you have male and female.

The different body parts are God's idea. We didn't evolve this way. God designed us this way. This is part of the very first creation of God. It's been this way from the start.

And now you're going to begin to know the meaning of these things, what male and female means as the human body develops. And you're going to begin to have a deeper understanding of being fruitful and multiplying. Then in the second chapter we have verses 24 and 25. This ends chapter two. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh.

And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. Here at the end of chapter 2 in Genesis we have one flesh, okay, that hasn't meant hardly anything to you. Up to this point it's going to mean more to you 30 minutes from now because This is what we're talking about now. And we're going to talk about the significance of the man and his wife being naked together and not being ashamed. This gives you, by starting at the beginning of the Bible, it gives you a theological framework and it tends you to God, God's idea, God's design, God's intent for all of these things.

Have you considered how much the Bible talks about sex? Okay, so we might be avoiding it and we might be sugarcoating it but the Bible is not avoiding it at all. Okay that's why there are all these texts that you want to skip and I want to skip and we'd be more comfortable skipping because they're everywhere. Okay Old Testament or New, information about human sexuality is pervasive in Scripture. I think we should take our cue from that.

God is not afraid to hand his people a testimony that has human sexuality right as a part of it, unvarnished, not sugar-coated. And so we take this, Genesis 1 and 2, etc. In the Bible, and our progressive introduction to them. This means that when you come time, when you're trying to beat their body clock, and you come to speak to them more specifically on this topic, you're actually just building on what they've been progressively introduced to over a period of years as you have hit these texts in the Bible. So as Scott said, it's not this unnatural beast that you're confronting at the time.

It's much more natural because you've been talking about it in certain ways over a period of time and they've been gaining a great understanding over a period of time and so all these things actually have a biblical context for your children when you come to talk in more detail. So building off the biblical foundation you make it clear that it's God's idea and gift only to be engaged within the bounds of marriage and it's not just a post-fall concession. Okay our children have to know this. That sex in marriage is not just a concession made to human beings after the fall because after all we got all these hormones and something's got to be done with them so God just sort of allows it and so we put it over here off in this corner we're all sort of ashamed of it but God allows it because here we are on planet earth after the fall and humans have urges and so that's how sex fits in no that's not how the Bible puts it all the Bible puts sex as a gift for husbands and wives, to be enjoyed only in that context, but to be received as a gift, not a dirty thing off in the corner at all that was a concession that God made because sin had somehow come into the world.

My view of talking to our children about this is that dads should lead the discussion. And that wives should be present. I'm just telling you how we've done it, okay? Again, this is not something I can pin to a text of Scripture. I'm headed this direction because fathers are the head of the home and this is a tough one and I think the father should take it on.

That's what I think. And I always wanted Janet there to be present, to hear what I'm saying and hear how what I'm saying might be problematic for somebody who's headed down this track for the first time and be able to gently enter the discussion in a way that would be helpful and keep me from Saying things that are not going to be properly understood or that haven't really been said in the right way So I've always wanted Janet at my elbow and I've always wanted to lead the discussion myself And yes, that means with our girls. I practically only have girls. There's only Jake on our side. So if I'm gonna lead the discussion, I'm gonna have to lead it with girls because that's what I got except for Mr.

Jake. And I cover the anatomy of male and female with both of them. Okay? And I draw. Okay, I'm terrible at drawing.

But I draw. And I give the anatomy the anatomical terms. And I explain what the term is and I explain what the body part does how it functions okay so I'm talking about fallopian tubes And I'm talking about the monthly release of eggs. Now I'm not saying everybody has to do it this way, I'm just telling you the discussion that I've had. I want them, when they later encounter the terms, to know at least, I've heard that.

Okay, I've heard that. I sort of know something about that. And I want them to have exposure to the vocabulary and I want to expose them to it and I want to define it. And I talk about how the male body works, I talk about how the female body works, and I explain the female cycle so that my girls aren't scared to death. I mean obviously Janet is talking more to them about these things than I am and that's so my son begins to have an understanding of how these things work.

One day he's gonna get married. Okay. I don't want him to get exposed to that two weeks before the wedding. I really don't. I don't think that's a good idea.

And it opens up a number of other things that you're then able to talk about at a deeper level like what like modesty Okay, modesty is important But modesty has a whole new context when you begin to have this discussion about human sexuality with them at a deeper level. That is going to give your young men the context of why it's important to absolutely guard your eyes, make a covenant with your eyes, not to look lustfully on a woman and it gives our young ladies more context for why it matters that they dressed modestly and what's at stake and how unloving it is to their brothers in Christ to dress in a provocative way and how much that affects them. Young ladies have to know that. If we don't tell them, how will they know it? It opens up not just a vein of discussion and modesty but discretion and secrecy.

There are things that we want to be secret and there are things we absolutely don't want to be secret. So it's an opportunity to talk about these things. What do we want to be secret? I don't want you talking to your brothers and sisters about this stuff. I don't want you talking to your friends about this stuff.

That's for their parents to sort out in their family. You're not introducing your friends into this world. No way, no how, don't you dare. And your older brother and sisters, they've already heard this, we've already talked to them, but this is not fair game for discussion between you and them now. We're having this discussion, but it's a private discussion and this doesn't open the field for you to now have ongoing discussions with your brothers and sisters about these things.

Nope, that's not the purpose of why we're talking. Please don't. I insist that you don't. Where do we not want secrecy? You must know that as your body develops you cannot let people touch you in places where they shouldn't be touching you.

You cannot. You cannot. You must not. That includes everyone. That includes people at church.

That includes your brothers and sisters. That includes everyone on planet earth. You cannot. Okay? And if they try or if they do, that cannot be secret.

You have to tell us. You have to let us know. We want to know and we want to intervene on your behalf if someone is attempting or is doing that. You want to open that up as an area where you absolutely insist that there not be secrecy and that they're talking with you if that has already happened or if it were to happen in the future. You want them coming to you and not cloaking that in secrecy.

This is a time where we should consider Deuteronomy chapter 22. It's an interesting chapter. It says that if a woman cries out for help, then she's clean. She's free from responsibility. If she doesn't cry out, it's assumed to be consent.

Do you know our daughters need to know this? Our daughters need to be taught that it's their duty to withhold consent and to cry out. If we don't tell them that, they might be much, much, much too passive when the moment comes. Our daughters need to know what Deuteronomy chapter 22 requires of us if we find ourselves in compromising positions. And I think we should close a discussion with our older children by instituting an open door policy.

In other words, this is not one and done, you know. We're not just sort of pushing ourselves past our threshold of comfort and I only want to do this once so that sort of both of our are one shot at it. No. As you think through these things, if you have questions, I welcome your questions, your mom welcomes your questions, and from time to time we're probably going to initiate, you know, more discussion maybe on related topics. But I think we want to open the door to follow up, and particularly with fathers and their sons in the area of sexual purity.

I've been in the faith, I don't know, maybe 35 years or 40 years now, something like that. And I've never been among a group of men where sexual purity wasn't like sort of the top of the list of areas of struggle and fighting against compromise. Okay so you can't know that at 46 and then say I'm never going to talk to my son about it. Okay that makes no sense. That's insanity.

Okay so not only do we have an obligation to be on top of that and be ever vigilant in our own lives, like we have to engage with our sons about this. We do have to push past the comfort zone threshold to begin to speak with our sons about this and ask them very pointed questions. It'll be very uncomfortable for both of us at first in order to come alongside them and be a brother. Okay, you're a father in one way, but you're a brother in another, and you are your brother's keeper. You are your brother's keeper.

You have a responsibility to a brother in Christ as well as to a son in your home. To be alongside and to be a source of encouragement and exhortation and maybe rebuke. I'd also like to say this just because the door is open don't let laxity come into your communication with your children. And never speak of these things profanely or flippantly, but only reverently. In other words, there's a crass way to talk about these things.

We should never use the crass language to talk about these things. Think of how modest and muted the language of the Bible is and then act accordingly okay what does the language of the Bible lay with new okay uncovered the nakedness of Probably the most explicit term that you find in the Bible is went into. Okay, but in any event these are not crass terms. Never does the Bible use crass language and never should we use crass language. The danger of having this discussion with our children and opening the door for future discussion is that we lose the uncomfortability about talking about it that would lead us to a point where we might let down our guard and use language that is not as muted or as modest as what the Scripture would give to us.

We want these things to be treated reverentially because they're given to us by God. Let's pray. Father, we do thank you for gift of marriage that you have created an appropriate place for sexual expression. That those who burn with passion have a refuge. I thank you for that.

I pray God that you would help us to bring our children into this world gently and with great sensitivity and with great fear of the Lord. Though we would tremble to do it, we would be willing to do it in order to be a blessing to them. I pray that you would help us to know how to do this and I pray that you would help us to know how to do this and I pray that you would help us to know when to do this. Pray in Jesus name, amen. One thing that I meant to say that I didn't say is, hey consider carefully the policy in your house.

We think because they're sibling, there'll never be any sexual attraction inside our house that we have to deal with. Wrong, not true. Just consider the policies. Consider when you'll allow doors to be shut, whether that's acceptable or not, when that's acceptable. Okay, when people can be alone or when they need to be in groups and what the size of the groups need to be.

All this, yeah you get, hope is not a strategy, okay, hope is not a strategy. Hope is a recipe for things that you never thought you know would happen. You know there are safeguards for particular vulnerabilities that people have in homes. You know, in our home, because we had a lot of people in and out of our home, our policy was that, You know, visitors never went into any bedrooms, doors were always open, and everybody was in the main room. You know, you don't want some boy coming into your house and molesting a girl in one of your rooms, or one of your daughters, or one of your friend's daughters.

It can happen. And so, when you have an environment where everybody's looking at pornography on the internet and child pornography and stuff like that, You just have to realize that there are vulnerabilities today that didn't exist 30 years ago in homes. So my recommendation is to keep tight control over where everybody is in your house and don't let young people go off in rooms by themselves. It's just my advice. It's not a law of the land.

It was a law of my land. And I'm glad I did it. Nakedness. The Bible has a lot to say about nakedness. Nakedness is reserved for a husband and wife and no one else.

One another's nakedness. That's my interpretation of the passage of Scripture on nakedness. You know a lot of us grew up in a world of you know open shower rooms and stuff like that. Those things really violate what the Bible says about looking on someone else's nakedness But we live in a world that's really insensitive to some really basic fundamental things that are in Scripture If you haven't gotten your hands on Jeff Pollard's The Public Undressing of America, it's just excellent. It's not a long read, but he takes a lot of these things head on in terms of modesty.

It helps you think rightly in the category. Helps you to see how far we've come, how fast, in other words, 100 years ago, these things were unthinkable. You know, the things that are, we've totally lost sensitivity to them. Somebody from 100 years ago would catapult forward into our time, they would not even know how a society could even have gotten here. Well, the book explains how we got here.

It's good to know. It's a slippery slope. Let's pray. Lord, we praise you for your design, for making a world for your own glory, for making all of these things that we've discussed today for your own glory, a father and a mother, a child, a daughter, a son, matters of sexuality, matters of honor and obedience. All these things, Lord, that you have designed to extol your goodness.

Lord, we thank you for giving us so many good gifts and for the enjoyment that there is but help us Lord to to keep them in their in their proper place so that they are enjoyment instead of a curse. Lord we know that when we when we walk away from your ways, all of the good things become hard, and they hurt. And so Lord, that you would give us such a heart within us, to love you, to keep your commandments, and to be found reflecting your glory in all of these different ways. And I pray especially, Lord, for the families in these two churches that you would protect them, that you would make them little kingdoms of heaven, that they would love not the world or the things that are in the world Or the lusts of the flesh or the lusts of the eyes or the boastful pride of life But that your love would rule and reign in our families. I we pray that you would protect the rising generation that they would be a glorious testimony of your loving kindness, that you would give them joy in your presence forevermore.

Amen.